History

The symposium « In the Heart of the Great War » has been, above all, conceived as an exchange between graduate students and early career researchers in order to construct, via debate and dialogue, coherent interpretations about the individual at the crossroads between military and civilian realities. The call for paper is reserved to early career researchers and graduate students. The symposium theme is merely a guideline, a clue for reflection rather than a well-defined subject. It leads us to question the ways through which individuals – soldiers, civilians at the home front or in occupied territories – integrate and conciliate the military dimension on one side (whether it’s their experience at the front or German presence on the streets of their village) and the civil dimension on the other. In addition to the encounter between the civilian and military « worlds », constituting two separate spheres, we must reflect upon the individual as being at the crossroads between two dimensions, which jointly construct him or her. Given the intended international character of these encounters, the working languages will be either English or French. The symposium will be held at the Mons Memorial Museum, on 26th-28th October 2017, in Mons, Belgium.

« Au coeur de la Grande Guerre » est un colloque international qui réunit des jeunes chercheurs afin de débattre des interactions entre identités civiles et militaires pendant la Première Guerre mondiale. Les communications se font en anglais et en français. L'individu au croisement du civil et du militaire L'objectif est d'interroger la manière dont l'individu, soldat, civil de l'arrière ou occupé, intègre et concilie la dimension militaire du conflit d'une part, et la dimension civile de son existence de l'autre. Comment le souvenir de sa ferme impacte-t-il l'expérience du paysan français au front ? Comment la présence de soldats allemands dans les rues de son village affecte-t-elle la vie d'une mère qui attend son mari ? Comment, finalement, une véritable frontière sociale qui semblait aller de soi à bien des acteurs du conflit s'est elle troublée irrévocable-ment pendant quatre année de guerre ?

9-12 octobre 2019
CEREFREA (Villa Noël) - Bucarest

Appel à contributions

L'objectif de ce colloque est d'éclairer les initiatives pratiques conjointes entre la France et l'ensemble des pays alliés de l'Europe médiane au cours de l’entre-deux-guerres pour construire de façon concrète l'alliance entre les partenaires.

Workshop, Université Paris Nanterre, January 31st – February 1st, 2019

The “A Greater War” network (+GG) is dedicated to a generation of early career scholars that has emerged during the Centenary. The network is based upon the idea of going beyond the borders which have thus far organised the study of the First World War, whether chronological, geographical, or disciplinary. The goal is to ensure that the vitality of the research continues after the commemorations, maintaining the quality and intensity of the debate. 
To this end, we invite you to the network’s launch and first workshop, dedicated to historical sources, to take place at the Université Paris Nanterre on Thursday, 30 January and Friday, 1 February 2019.
The question of the study of sources is central to the renewal of research practices operated by the early career scholars +GG aims to assemble. The historical reflection conducted at the Université Paris Nanterre, aiming to apply an historical perspective to artistic and literary sources at the crossroads between disciplines, renders it the ideal setting for dialogues around this topic. This essential reflection also benefits from the on-campus presence of “La Contemporaine” (formerly the “Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale et Contemporaine”). 
Postgraduate students and early career scholars (from second year Master’s students to scholars whose doctorate has been awarded within the last three years) are invited to participate in round table discussions about papers which will have previously circulated amongst all participants. Each participant will comment the work of another early career researcher, with the moderation of senior scholars. These papers may address one or many of the topics indicated (amongst others):

1.    Revaluation of sources in the context of the Centenary: A new study of sources? What were the contributions of the “Grande Collecte”? How to “face” the influx of sources and questions raised by the commemorations?

2. Old perspective(s), new sources: How to apply previously-established theoretical frameworks to new sources, issued from both the Centenary and from an interdisciplinary opening?

3. Old sources, new perspective(s): How to study a source which has already been explored by questioning it differently? How to bring together researches arising from different disciplinary and/or paradigmatic fields? What are the new approaches brought about by early career scholars today? How to apply the theoretical frameworks conceived by our predecessors?

4. Mechanisms for the construction / conservation / diffusion / exploration of sources: Which methodologies and techniques are applied by early career researchers to their sources? How is science being made? What are the issues arising from the digital humanities when applied to First World War sources?

5. Using sources to go beyond borders: Which sources to explore in order to breach physical, chronological, and disciplinary borders that may have thus far oriented the studies of the Great War? How to trace the conflict’s impact beyond the European fronts and the timespan of 1914-1918? Where to look for new sources and how to explore them in order to write this history? More broadly, how to renew, in France, the usage of sources applying methods used in other countries? Is there a “French usage” of sources of the Great War?

Organising committee:
• Julia Ribeiro Simon Cavalcanti Thomaz (Université Paris Nanterre)
• Aude-Marie Lalanne Berdouticq (Université Paris Nanterre)
• Damien Accoulon (Université Paris Nanterre & Technische Universität Braunschweig)

Scientific committee:
• Annette Becker (Professeure, Université Paris Nanterre)
• Laurence Campa (Professeure, Université Paris Nanterre)
• Franziska Heimburger (Maîtresse de conférence, Sorbonne Universités)
• Alexandre Sumpf (Maître de conférence, Université de Strasbourg)
• Damien Accoulon (Université Paris Nanterre & Technische Universität Braunschweig)
• Aude-Marie Lalanne Berdouticq (Université Paris Nanterre)
• Gwendal Piégais (Université de Bretagne Occidentale)
• Julia Ribeiro Simon Cavalcanti Thomaz (Université Paris Nanterre)